Sister Amy Vernes: Leaving Suriname June 20

Zuster Parker and I will be leaving Suriname for two days. This is only happening because of our visa. So, on Tuesday, we will be flying to Aruba, we will then have some sisters pick us up to go teaching with them. Then they will have to take us back to the airport and we´ll be flying to Curacao, we´ll have to wait at the airport for two hours, then we´ll be flying to Trinidad. We´ll arrive in the middle of the night, our Mission President and his wife, will be waiting for us there, they will be making us midnight snacks and..oh my.. Sister Egberts food is amazing! 4 hours later and we will be flying to Curacao and will be there until 6pm and guess what!!! The senior couple there will pick us up and I am allowed to see Wela (my grandma)!! I am so excited but of course we will still go out teaching!! Mom you have to give all the information to Sister Egbert :)

Then we will be flying to Aruba again and will have to be at the airport for 2 hours. And on Thursday, very early in the morning, we will be back in Suriname. I cant wait this will be so much fun! I'm mostly excited to just also get to teach other people on different islands and meet more missionaries.

Something crazy happened last Saturday: my companion and I are responsible for filling up the baptismal font, this can take a whole day the water pump isn't very fast. We normally split this into 2 or 3 days as it is such a long procedure. The day before we got a very specific referral from the Elders. The member who gave this referral told us the street where the referral lives with the house number, he told us what to talk about which was what our purpose is here on earth and why we have trials. And told us what time we had to contact, which was between 6 and 7 pm.

However, as we were having breakfast, we got a call from our Zone leader and he told us that there will be a baptism today. Of course my companion and I are freaking out as we wouldn´t be able to fill it up as much as it needs to be! Immediately we biked to church, started filling up the font and sadly cancel on a lot of people as we cant leave the church. Now baptisms start at 5pm, I have no idea how in the world the font was filled by 4pm. It honestly was a miracle as it is just not possible for the water to run this fast!

Problem #2 occurs...which is we have to drain the font, this also takes 3 hours if we are lucky and then we have to go home or else it will be past our curfew! Now we are still freaking out, and not quite sure on what we need to do as this was the only chance to contact the referral. And again second miracle happens the font was emptied by 7 pm!! We then start biking crazy fast to this referral.

3rd problem occurs...we cant find it! The house number was like 389 and it was nowhere to be found! It simply did not exist. We then tried calling this member and ask him to describe the house. He says it´s made out of stone and it has like a tent in front of the house. For any one who hasn´t been in Suriname...this description is basically every single house!!

Frustrated Zuster Jorgensen and I bike the street up and down, at 7pm is point it is getting past and the sun is down, it was pitch black. We then finally decide to pray. A man came out of his house and asked if we needed help. We told him the house number and the persons name, he told us that the house numbers have been changed, he used to be 187 and is now 23. With this information we try to find it.

My companion recognized a house while we were biking once again down the street that we klopped (knocked) at in our first transfer together. (During our rescue project finding the less active and bringing them back to church, however this old lady very rudely rejected us in the pouring rain) And guess what...it was raining like crazy again, we klopped at the same house, the same woman again very rudely rejected us, then we asked if she knew the person we were looking for, she then says yes, they live across the street.
We klop and a woman comes out, we introduce ourselves, she looks at my name tag, starts laughing and says: "You are the sister of Elder Vernes, right? Well he taught me with Elder Zwart (not sure if it was him or Elder Koenen) And I got baptized."
She then also said: "You came just in time as i only just got back from work, if you would´ve gotten here any earlier, you would have missed me."

Sometimes, okay actually, a lot of times when we plan our day, it never goes the way we want it to be. Heavenly Father gives us these trials and cancelled appointments so then we can be just in time to meet up with the person that need us most!

Another cool experience is when we taught our investigator, we taught her the restoration, in her closing prayer she said: " Heavenly Father, help me join this church and become better, help me to understand the Book of Mormon better."

Another awesome success...3 of our investigators came to church and also a lot of less actives, it was just AMAZING!

On my left, a young woman, Jamay 14 yrs, she has read the Book of Mormon & the Bible 7 times! She and her mom are the only members in their family. And she has read Jesus the Christ, only been a member for 2 years, her testimony is incredible, such an example to me. She shares the gospel with every one and I mean every one! I love her so much!

I hope your week has been awesome, I love you all do much, keep reading the Book of Mormon EVERY DAY and PRAY EVERY DAY!! Happy father day!